


(Un)expected Changes

by TheKnightOfHeart



Series: Fixing a Broken Heart [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Keith/Lance (Voltron), Multi, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Pining Allura (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Post-Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 07, Protective Krolia (Voltron), Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 08 Fix-It, and trust me we're almost to that happy ending lads :), seriously guys he's so hot but so oblivious, technically?? still not sure if i'm gonna make it that far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 14:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnightOfHeart/pseuds/TheKnightOfHeart
Summary: “R-right,” Lance stammers. He checks his space phone for the time and blanches. “Shoot, it’s getting late. I gotta go, Princess, sorry.”“No problem. Youdefinitelyneed a shower,” Allura teases.Lance chuckles, embarrassed, and walks past her. He doesn’t notice how she doesn’t move until he opens the door to his room and she suddenly calls out to him. He turns to see her clutching her hands together in front of her stomach, uncharacteristically nervous.“Lance, would you mind taking a walk with me some time today?” she asks.He blinks. “I... O-of course, Princess. How about after dinner? I don’t think we’ll have anything to do after that.”“Yes, that sounds wonderful,” Allura says, relaxing. She gives him a warm smile. “I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”





	(Un)expected Changes

Lance wakes up ten minutes before his alarm is set to go off. It’s an unusual occurrence, but considering how restless he’s been the past few days, it’s not necessarily surprising that he’s woken by the sounds of the Garrison starting to wake up with him. The walls aren’t necessarily thin, but Lance likes leaving the window to his room open a little so he can hear the sounds of his planet remind himself that he’s not trapped in the dead silence of space with only a handful of other people and the quiet hum of the Castle’s machinery to keep him company.

And now, he realizes with a rapidly sinking stomach, he won’t even have the Castle anymore and his team leader and his leader’s mom are treating him like he’s done something irredeemable for seemingly no reason. He sighs and rolls over to scream into his pillow.

After emptying his lungs, he flips back over and takes a deep breath. He feels exhausted despite not having moved for the past few hours, and he knows that today will only make that bone-deep exhaustion worse. He debates staying in bed for all of three seconds before remembering that he can’t afford to. Today is another full day for Voltron, and Lance probably won’t have any free time until lunch.

With that fun realization, Lance finally throws back the sheets and shivers in the early morning chill his window has let in. Still, he can’t bring himself to regret leaving it open. It gives him a bit of a kick in the butt and has him dressing and getting ready faster than he otherwise would’ve, and less than fifteen minutes after waking up, Lance is dressed in light work-out gear and leaving his room.

Walking down the halls of the Garrison is the strangest form of deja vu, Lance decides. He’s in a new section of the campus, reserved for high-ranking officers (and isn’t _that_ flattering, that Lance is now considered important enough to get his own room with its own separate bathroom and tiny living area/kitchenette), but everywhere he looks seems to bring up memories. When he finally reaches the main gymnasium where, in any other situation, cadets will be training their inexperienced and immature butts off to be pilots or engineers or what have you, Lance’s heart is sore from reminiscing about bittersweet memories.

Still, he sets down his stuff near the wall and begins his stretches. He moves through an abridged yoga routine, calming music playing through the tinny speakers on his space phone. After that, he moves to his actual work-out. He jogs laps around the gym, does push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups and squats and a two-minute plank. It’s impossible to practice his swordsmanship without someone/thing to spar with, so he shoots targets for a while and makes a new record. By the time his hour and a half routine is up, he’s fairly tired out, but he’s successfully distracted himself from his swirling thoughts and the post-exercise endorphins have tricked him into thinking he’s happier.

He packs all his stuff back up and walks back to his room to take a shower before breakfast. The Garrison is officially awake, and he nods awkwardly to the few people who recognize him out of uniform as he passes them in the hallway. A few months ago, Lance would’ve been preening under their attention. Now, though, he just wants to get to his room as quickly as possible and take a shower. He’s sweating like a pig.

Of course, the universe takes this exact moment to make Allura appear. Lance reaches the hallway containing his teammates’ rooms and almost runs directly into her as she’s leaving her own room. Thankfully, they manage to stop right before making contact. Not so thankfully, Lance is able to get a noseful of Allura’s perfume before he’s able to step out of its range, and he’s left feeling more than a little flustered.

“Sorry about that, Allura,” he mumbles awkwardly. “Er, uh, Princess. I should’ve been paying more attention.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Allura assures him immediately, smiling.

She looks him up and down subtly and seems to realize that he’s not wearing one of his usual three outfits: Everyday, Garrison, and Paladin. Lance fights the urge to squirm under her gaze. He doesn’t think she’s ever seen him in shorts and a tank top, much less almost dripping with sweat. He feels shy, like his skin is too tight and his bones too… boney, and she looks like she just stepped out of a fashion shoot. All while wearing her pink Garrison uniform. It’s a strange contrast, but she somehow makes it work.

“Were you training just now?” she asks. If Lance looks close enough, he could almost trick himself into thinking she’s blushing. But it’s hard to tell with her dark skin, and Lance doesn’t want to embarrass himself by assuming things.

“Yeah,” he says dumbly. “Since we haven’t been doing any group training, I decided to do some on my own. It’s kinda weird to be doing it on my own, though, I’ll admit.”

He freezes for a second before hastily tacking on, “N-not that I don’t understand why we _haven’t_ been doing group training! Rebuilding Earth and strengthening the Garrison’s defenses and stuff _definitely_ takes priority. I just--”

Allura takes pity on him and giggles. Lance smiles sheepishly, not entirely sure what’s so funny about his dumb rambling, but he doesn’t mind not understanding as long as _Allura’s_ happy about it. None of them have really been smiling much. Most of that is his and Keith’s fault, he knows, but that’s a rabbit hole he does _not_ want to think about right now. Especially not after spending most of this morning trying to keep the black-haired Black Paladin out of his head.

“So, uh, you off to breakfast?” Lance asks and almost immediately regrets when Allura’s giggles die down.

Her grin only grows. “Well, yes, that’s typically what we do every day at 0700 hours.”

“R-right,” Lance stammers. He checks his space phone for the time and blanches. “Shoot, it’s getting late. I gotta go, Princess, sorry.”

“No problem. You _definitely_ need a shower,” Allura teases.

Lance chuckles, embarrassed, and walks past her. He doesn’t notice how she doesn’t move until he opens the door to his room and she suddenly calls out to him. He turns to see her clutching her hands together in front of her stomach, uncharacteristically nervous.

“Lance, would you mind taking a walk with me some time today?” she asks.

He blinks. “I... O-of course, Princess. How about after dinner? I don’t think we’ll have anything to do after that.”

“Yes, that sounds wonderful,” Allura says, relaxing. She gives him a warm smile. “I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”

“Yeah, see you soon,” Lance says, still a bit stunned. She waves and finally walks away, disappearing from sight a few seconds later.

He questions the odd interaction the whole way through his quick shower, abbreviated skincare routine, and change into his blue Garrison uniform, but he can’t think of a good reason as to why Allura was so nervous about asking him to take a walk with her. It’s strange, but he _has_ been noticing a small shift in their dynamic since Lotor’s betrayal and their shared hug on the Castle bridge as he tried to comfort her. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that she was beginning to crush on him.

Lance laughs to almost silently himself as he speed-walks down towards the mess hall. Yeah, right. The day Allura likes him is the day Earthen pigs grow wings and fly.

He glances out the window to get a quick glance at the sunrise before being shut in meeting rooms for the next few hours, ignoring the tension between him and Keith and trying not to pull his own hair out in boredom or frustration or general anxiety. To his surprise, though, a good chunk of it is blocked out by a gathering mass of clouds. He can’t help but hope that it’ll rain soon. Desert rainstorms were always his favorite, and it would be his first rainstorm since arriving back on Earth. It would never be as good as a Cuban rainstorm, but it would do.

Elsewhere, Krolia and Keith consider the gathering clouds with dread. Krolia attempts to talk to her son, but he blows her off every time. If Lance notices Krolia’s steadily increasing hostility, he doesn’t mention it to anyone else. After a long, stressful day and skipped dinner, Keith decides to take a walk with Kosmo. Distant thunder quietly rattles the sky, but the rain refuses to fall just yet.

**Author's Note:**

> *blasts the chorus of "almost there" from disney's 2009 film, the princess and the frog and then realizes that the next chapter is gonna be pretty angsty and slowly turns the volume down* nevermind, i guess it doesn't really fit. but either way, i'm proud of myself for posting two parts of this new series in one day!! of course, now that i've said that, i've jinxed it and it's gonna be another month before i post the next part :/ but hopefully it won't!!!! and i'll try my best to keep that from happening, promise
> 
> next part is going to be angsty as frick-frack (censoring myself because i tagged this as general audiences and i don't wanna swear without a T warning on the fic). there will be serious heart-to-heart chats, terrible misunderstandings, epic(?) chases, kissing in the rain, and protective Galra moms. hopefully coming soon to a fanfic site near you!!
> 
> kudos/comments/etc. make me uwu so hard you have no clue. y'all's validation keeps me excited to write these fics and reminds me of how much i love this fandom and these characters despite their many ups and downs :)


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